Subject: Re: What case problem is Franz trying to solve?
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: 2000/11/10
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3182882219798792@naggum.net>

* Barry Margolin <barmar@genuity.net>
| But it's unlikely that much code is currently written this way, so it
| would have to be found and fixed.  I suspect there's also code out
| there that reads user input using things like READ-LINE, and then
| calls STRING-UPCASE before calling INTERN or FIND-SYMBOL, to ensure
| that it will find the right symbol.

  The obvious solution to this problem is _not_ to make an irreversible
  global change, but to retain upper-case access to symbols even while
  you have lower-case access to them.  Franz Inc's solution is wrong,
  and causes lots or problems in transitioning between upper-case and
  lower-case "modes".  Such global mode switches are generally not the
  best kind of solution, anyway.  I truly wonder why they didn't look
  further when it has so many obvious drawbacks, apart from breaking
  code that relies on the old upper-case behavior, which is considered
  something that _shouldn't_ work by some Franz people.  I can't believe
  the argument that any such code is so easy to change there's no cost
  to it.  How do you know you've caught them all?  How is that easier to
  prove than not to break the thing in the first place while allowing
  people the choice?  And he's never seen find-symbol!  That is _not_
  comforting.  The sheer arrogance here is too much, just too much.

#:Erik
-- 
  ALGORITHM: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite
  number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.
  ALGOREISM: a procedure for solving an electoral problem in a finite
  number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.